“Are we going to give power to the algorithms?”, Wonders in his work Hugues Bersini, professor of computer science at the Free University of Brussels, who dissects the functioning of these tools and claims a new digital democracy.
by Antoine Reverchon
Book. While the appearance of the comet chatgpt rekindles all anxieties and concerns, but also of healthy questions in front of this new leap in front of artificial intelligence, the reading of Algocracy, Hugues Bersini (De Boeck, 160 pages, 15.90 euros), has something soothing. The book makes it possible to understand, by clinging all the same, how and why our lives, our practices and our behaviors have gradually been invaded by digital tools which do not deserve enthusiasm or the curses that we They willingly lend them so. Simply, the IT teacher at the Free University of Brussels explains “how it works”, demystifying in the passage of false complexities, pseudo-innovations, ephemeral enthusiasts. He simply delivers a peaceful story of computer science.
But it is not a question of concealing the immense ethical, economic, legal and ultimately political issues of what is playing: they are even at the heart of the work, beyond the Enlightening description of digital “machines”.
The author does not hesitate to assert his conviction that, yes, artificial intelligence is able to solve major problems of our existence, confronted with the risk of climate and environmental collapse – and that is even No doubt the only way to get away with it when our own simply human brains are no longer able to resolve the terrible contradiction between the rescue of our individual life and the safeguard of our commune humanity.
for a ” Citizen coding “
But not anything. Certainly not by entrusting the case to private for-for-profit companies, even if they were created by small geniuses of technology, because the search for profit can only lead to the unfair distribution of misfortunes and happiness that bring Digital company. Nor to potentate states, even if they were advised by the best “experts”, because the managerial technocracy never reaches collective efficiency, but the manipulation of brains and opinions. The author therefore calls on a “citizen coding”, invoking the already long history of free software.
We must, contraindicating, go beyond our reluctance to communicate our personal data, because they are essential for improving the collective property. Provided you can understand uses and treatments, entrust them to institutions of trust. Hugues Bersini is precisely the host, in Brussels, of the Fari Institute and the Citicod project, two initiatives aiming, he explains, to reinvent a digital democracy and citizen use of algorithms. He also presents other initiatives of this type on this occasion which, in the United Kingdom, in the United States or elsewhere, experience what he calls “the new cogs of a representative democracy”.
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